This is what advanced pelvic floor rehab looks like in our office. It’s a great one for rehabbing from a run related injury as well: Standing clamshells!

Why do this in standing as opposed to the way it’s traditionally prescribed on your side? Because running is 3-5x your bodyweight so you’re gonna need to eventually LOAD your body and that ain’t gonna happen laying down . So sidelying clamshells are a good start but shouldn’t be done forever- you need to move on.

We often teach this without the foot against the wall but our colleague and running mentor @zerenpt demonstrated this one recently so we tried it and liked this version enough to share!

If you DON’T push the foot into the wall, it’s a bit more challenge to your standing leg balance. If you DO actively push your foot into the wall, the emphasis shifts to you glutes a bit more.

Clamshells in standing is really working the standing leg in the way these muscles are used when running: as stabilizers. The hip external rotators (you have 6 of them) and Glute medius/minimus helps prevent your leg from collapsing inward (aka knees rotate in towards your other leg) and if you’ve been following us and have seen our previous posts then you know that hips=pelvic floor.

So when you ask us if you can run yet after giving birth, we will test your readiness to run with tests like this exercise. This is also good for running Prehab or run related injury rehab for anyone with a knee hip or back issue.

Give this one a shot and let us know if you feel a difference between the 2 legs. A 10% difference is expected but if one side is completely different from the other, you’re probably at a higher risk to develop a run related injury if you’re not already injured. It’s ok, just means you have some work to do! If you need some help figuring out why they’re so different or if you have pain, feel free to DM us!
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